New Moon Trivia:
'I
will find a place where I can see him again.'
(Total
Trivia Entries: 75)
Did you know that Taylor Lautner was in danger of not being able to reprise his role as Jacob Black in this sequel? Well, keep on reading New Moon trivia to get the full details.
Directed by: Chris Weitz
Written by: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay)
Stephenie Meyer (novel)
Starring:
Kristen
Stewart -
Bella SwanChristina Jastrzembska - Gran / Bella
Robert Pattinson - Edward Cullen
Billy Burke - Charlie Swan
Anna Kendrick - Jessica
Michael Welch - Mike
Justin Chon - Eric
Christian Serratos - Angela
Taylor Lautner - Jacob Black
Ashley Greene - Alice Cullen
Jackson Rathbone - Jasper Hale
Russell Roberts - Mr. Berty
Michael Sheen - Aro Volturi
Jamie Campbell Bower - Caius Volturi
Christopher Heyerdahl - Marcus Volturi
Peter Facinelli - Dr. Carlisle Cullen
Curtis Caravaggio - Rogue Vampire
Daniel Cudmore - Felix
Charlie Bewley - Demetri
Rachelle Lefevre - Victoria
Elizabeth Reaser - Esme Cullen
Kellan Lutz - Emmett Cullen
Nikki Reed - Rosalie Hale
Chaske Spencer - Sam Uley
Gil Birmingham - Billy Black
Graham Greene - Harry Clearwater
Tyson Houseman - Quil Ateara
Bronson Pelletier - Jared
Alex Meraz - Paul
Kiowa Gordon - Embry Call
Casting:
Apparently New Moon is Robert Pattinson's favorite book in the Twilight series.Robert Pattinson refused to have his eyebrows waxed as extensively as he had in the first movie, which resulted in a slightly bushier look on Edward.
Due to major physical changes that occur in the
character of Jacob
Black between Twilight
(2008) and New Moon,
director, Chris Weitz considered replacing Taylor Lautner in the sequel
with an actor who could more accurately portray "the new, larger Jacob
Black". In an attempt to keep the role, Lautner weight-trained
extensively and gained approximately 30 pounds of muscle.In January 2009, Chris Weitz and Summit Entertainment announced that Lautner would be reprising the role of Jacob in the sequel. In an interview, fellow cast member, Kristen Stewart, talked about Lautner's transformation saying, "He's an entirely different person physically."
Although Taylor Lautner was wired for safety when he leapt his way into Bella's bedroom window, Chris Weitz confirmed on the DVD documentary, "Life After Twilight", that it was all Taylor doing his own stunts.
Ashley Greene cut her hair quite short so that it could fit under her wig and she also wore a different wig than the one she wore in Twilight (2008), to portray Alice Cullen.
As it took 36 hours to turn Nikki Reed's natural brown hair to blond, it was decided that she would wear a wig to reprise her role as Rosalie in New Moon.
In late March 2009, Summit Entertainment released a list of the actors who would be
portraying the "wolf pack" alongside Taylor Lautner. The casting for the rest of the Quileute tribe was headed by casting director Rene Haynes, who has worked on films with large American Indian casts, such as Dances with Wolves (1990).
Apparently each member of the "wolf pack" had to have papers proving their Native decent:
- Chaske Spencer as Sam Uley - Lakota (Sioux)
- Bronson Pelletier as Jared - Cree-Metis
- Alex Meraz as Paul - Purepecha (Tarasco)
- Kiowa Gordon as Embry Call - Hualapai
- Tyson Houseman as Quil Ateara - Cree
The Actors that were part of the wolf pack went through "wolf camp" together to get all buff and to also bond with each other.
Chaske Spencer (Sam Uley) apparently had to wear extra long shorts/capris in the movie because his stunt double hurt his knee and had to wear a brace.
Mexican actor, Diego Luna, was apparently offered the role of Aro.
For the casting of Michael Sheen as Aro, director Chris Weitz has stated that he "aggressively pursued the actor", and describes the character as "on the surface, a very gracious and friendly vampire, but beneath that he is a tremendous threat."
Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays Caius Volturi, originally auditioned for the role of Edward Cullen in Twilight (2008).
Dakota Fanning took the role of Jane in order to prepare for her role as Cherrie Currie in The Runaways (2010), with her co-star Kristen Stewart. She later said that the role helped her to establish a relationship between the two in real-life and characters Cherrie and Joan Jett, in which Fanning and Stewart plays respectively.
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Screenplay & Production:
In early November 2008, Summit Entertainment announced that they had obtained the rights to the remaining books in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series: New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.Summit Entertainment confirmed that they would begin working on New Moon one day after Twilight (2008) had opened in theaters.
Author, Stephanie Meyer has stated "I don't think any other author has had a more positive experience with the makers of her movie adaptation than I have had with Summit Entertainment".
Twilight Screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg had been working on adapting New Moon novel prior to Twilight's release and handed in the draft for New Moon during Twilight's opening weekend in November 2008. She stated "I would sit down at ten o'clock in the morning and work on the script...until six o'clock in the evening." She spent the months of October 2008 through to June 2008 alternating between writing for the Showtime television series Dexter, and writing New Moon on weekends.
Melissa Rosenberg kept in touch with Stephanie Meyer during the time she was writing the script. One of the key changes the screenwriter made while adapting the book was the decision to take Edward's voice in Bella's head and make it visual. This change caused the first confrontation between the two main characters, one an "apparition", to be emotional.
Director of Twilight (2008), Catherine Hardwicke, was set to be the director of New Moon. However, in early December 2008, it was announced that Hardwicke would not be returning to direct the sequel. Hardwicke cited time restrictions as the reason behind her leaving the project.
In December 2008, it was announced that Chris Weitz, director of The Golden Compass (2007) and co-director of About a Boy (2002), had been hired to direct New Moon. Weitz released a statement shortly after the announcement, assuring Twilight fans that he would "protect the characters, the themes and story they love." He continued by saying, "This is not a task to be taken lightly, and I will put every effort into realizing a beautiful film to stand alongside a beautiful book."
This is the first time (and only time to date) that director, Chris Weitz, has done a movie about vampires. However his grandmother had a lead role in the Spanish vampire film Drácula (1931) and his brother, Paul Weitz, directed Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009).
Chris Weitz has stated that directing New Moon was an easier process than directing The Golden Compass (2007), as he found "a lot less interference from Summit Entertainment and a lot more understanding of the books than New Line had of The Golden Compass", which Chris said ended up being "completely re-cut" by the studio. He thinks that Summit Entertainment "understands the importance of the Twilight books, members of which who have read the books and appreciate them, not just see them as engines of possible profit".
Pre-production for New Moon began in December 2008 and filming began a few days early in late March 2009 in Vancouver.
The decision to shoot in Vancouver, rather than in Portland, came after debate on how to match the locations that were introduced in the first film. One member involved in the decision process pointed out that Vancouver had been originally scouted as a potential setting for Twilight, and it was only because the U.S. dollar had, at that time, dropped below the Canadian dollar that Oregon drew Twilight principal photography to Portland and its surrounding areas.
To shoot New Moon in Vancouver was chosen because it allowed a higher production value, while the surrounding areas contained beautiful forests and gray weather. With this decision, however, came the issue of reconstructing key sets that were used in the first film.
For the exterior of Forks High School, crew members were able to find a parking lot in Vancouver, but the school's steps needed to be filmed with a greenscreen backing to match those that were originally presented in Twilight. Then David Thompson Secondary School was used to serve as the interior for the high school scenes.
The Cullen house was one of the major assignments to find a match for in Vancouver, mainly because of the Portland area location's unique design. The production team agreed upon finding a house in the Vancouver area with an interior that emulated the high ceilings, glass walls, and forest surroundings of the first location. One location was positively compared to the one used in Portland, and therefore Weitz and the production team filmed portions of the film there. In order to keep with the design of the original house, portions of the story that took place in New Moon were moved to different sections of the house that weren't seen before.
The next location to scout Vancouver for was for the Swan house and the decision was made to recreate the house on an empty lot with a tree line and approaching road. The production team was able to rearrange the exterior of the house to match that in the first movie. When faced with creating the interior, the team measured the house in Portland, and built various pieces of the house on the lot and on a stage in Vancouver.
Using the Quileute country in Washington as a basis, the production team decided to place Jacob's house on the edges of the territory, rather than in the community, because of Jacob's attachment to the wolves. To Weitz, Jacob's house was the stepping stone into the forest world, where the reality of the werewolves is hidden. The production designer was faced with a "real world" verses "book world" challenge when the barn they located, described in the book as a red barn, was green. Initially bordered by a green fence, the decision of painting the barn, aging it, and renovating the exterior proved to be a layout that fit well with Jacob's character.
Chris Weitz envisioned a warm color palette for New Moon, contrary to the Twilight (2008), whose blue
tones were prevalent. His intention resulted in
golden tones, a change
that was inspired by Italian paintings, and ultimately served as the
basis for the crew's collaborative work. The approach also included the
use of specific colors at certain points in the movie. For example,
although Jacob's house is red, the color doesn't dominate until the
climax of the movie. The director stated that, "The square becomes a
flood of red, that's how conscious we were of every visual aspect."Tippett Studio was enlisted to create the computer generated wolves and Prime Focus of Vancouver handled the special effects of the vampires.
To prepare for the task of making the wolves look real, Tippet artists studied wolf culture. They also were able to reflect leadership and human muscle size by adjusting certain features of the wolves, such as their fat and tallness. A group of artists from Tippet Studios traveled to Wolf Mountain Sanctuary, outside of Los Angeles to see real wolves. and observe the behavior of both the timber and arctic wolves, who ran in packs of three to five. The idea was to give everyone a deeper feeling of the creature that they were creating.
Creating the shape-shifting werewolves was not an easy task. The wolf work included shooting "plates", or photographic imagery into which CG creations are integrated. Since the book described the wolves as being as big as horses, full-scale aluminum and board wolf cutouts were used as a visual reference for both actors and crew members. Once the actors had a reference, the cutouts would be removed allowing the cameras to capture the scene.
A raw 3D model of Jacob's wolf was the basis for creating the other wolves in the pack. A muscle system, which gave the appearance of muscles firing and flexing, contributed to this model. From there, the initial fur layout went to painters who were responsible for its color and groom.They also added characteristics, such as wet hair clumping together, and applied it to the fur. They refined this look before passing it off to the lighting and technical directors.
In order for the CG wolves to be in sync with the live action cameras and actors' movements, the team used match movers, a land surveying tool that recorded the shooting location's topography with reference marks.
Chris Weitz has stated that when Bella wakes up from her dream at the beginning of the movie you can see Volterra's tower and the red-cloaked revelers from the festival of San Marco on the cover of Bella's copy of Romeo and Juliet.
After scouting more than twelve possible locations to film scenes that would take place in
Volterra, Italy, the scouting team selected the town of Montepulciano, which they believe was the best representation of Meyer's description in the book.
According to Stephanie Meyer, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was a major influence for her writing of New Moon, which is why there are referrals to it in the movie; such as when Bella first awakens from her dream at the beginning of the movie you can see that she has the stage-play of "Romeo and Juliet" next to her face and also during the school class scene when they are watching an old movie version of Romeo and Juliet.
In the scene where Charlie gives Bella her birthday presents, you can see a picture of Bella and Edward taken from Twilight (2008) stuck in the corner of a wall decoration behind her bed.
The school parking lot scene where it's Bella's 18th birthday, was shot on April 9th which was in fact Kristen Stewart's 19th birthday.
During the filming of Bella's birthday party, Jackson Rathbone got so into character that both Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen) and Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen) had to hold him back. During one of the takes, Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen) was actually knocked to the ground.
In the scene when Edward gets out of the truck after Bella's birthday party and they are arguing, when Edward gets out of the truck, it was actually a double dressed like Robert Pattinson in the driver's seat. Pattinson was positioned next to the camera on the right but out of shot and as soon as the double got out of truck, Pattinson stepped in front of the camera. Director, Chris Weitz pointed out that this was trick deliberately done to show how Edward moves faster than humanly possible.
In the scene when Edward is about to leave Bella, she tells him she loves him. Weitz explains in the DVD documentary "Life After Twilight" that this line was ad-libbed from the actors themselves and that it gives the scene more emotional weight because it's a sad sort of "I love you," which makes their break-up all the more tragic.
One challenge for the production team was how to convey Bella's depression once Edward leaves her. In the novel, these pages were filled with the names of the passing months, and in the movie, would be represented as a visual effects shot with a camera circling around Kristen Stewart. The window that was used for the original film didn't quite fit what Weitz was looking for, so the production team created a bay window when recreating the Swan house. The effect was one of the 300 visual effects helmed by Prime Focus. It required matching two camera shots; one that shot the actress in a chair, and the other shooting the view outside the window as seen from the house built on location. Using a greenscreen, Prime Focus was able to enhance the changing of seasons with computer-generated leaves and falling snow.
Most of Anna Kendrick's dialog when Jessica and Bella leave the movie theater was improvised.
For the screenplay, the four men who Bella approaches needed to create a significant and dangerous situation, and so screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg, gave these men motorcycles. She stated "I added the motorcycles, mainly because...they became an important part of Bella's relationship with Jacob."
When Jacob lifts the motorbike out of the back of Bella's truck, Taylor Lautner was actually holding a bike held up on wires by a crane. The wires were later removed digitally.
When Jacob is fixing Bella's motorbike in his garage, a wolf print can be seen on the back of his t-shirt.
The Wilhelm scream, which is a frequently-used film and television stock sound effect, is heard twice during the movie "Face Punch" that Bella, Mike and Jacob go see together.
As in Twilight (2008), Kristen Stewart wears brown contact lenses in order to match her character's eye color. The same is true of New Moon, except for the Jacob/Bella "break-up" scene outside of Jacob's house where it's raining heavily. In this scene, Stewart did not wear lenses, instead her brown eyes are actually CG applied during post-production. This was because the rain kept affecting her lenses.
The scene where Bella jumps of cliff and is sinking into the depths of the sea was achieved by putting weights in the actress'
s pockets and
letting her sink in a swimming pool. Kristen Stewart was apprehensive
about doing this, so director Chris Weitz demonstrated it on himself to
show that there was nothing to be afraid of. However, as soon as he hit
the bottom, he panicked, pulled the weights out of his pockets, and
resurfaced, saying "We can't do that to Kristen!" In the end they
filmed her from the side and moved the camera backwards to achieve the
effect of sinking.
Just before Jacob almost kisses Bella at her house, he says "Kwop kilawtley", which means "stay with me forever" in Quileute.
The Italian sequences were shot over a period of 4 days and shot in the town of Montepulciano. This was because of its uncanny resemblance to the Italian town described in Stephenie Meyer's novel. The only difference was that its main square lacked a fountain which production designer, David Brisbin, built from wood.
The original idea for the face-off between the Volturi and Edward, was to have a bigger "bang" rather than just the paralysis of Edward. And what was to be a huge battle with vampires being thrown everywhere turned into a one-on-one fight between Felix and Edward, after receiving a stamp of approval from Meyer. The idea quickly changed from the big battle, to just portraying Edward as an average guy caught in the middle of a bad situation and for Bella conveying the feeling of being caught in the middle of a group of vampires fighting.
In the scene when Bella tells Aro that he doesn't know anything about Edward's soul and Aro replies, "Fore. Ne il vostro l'uno o altro.", Chris Weitz confirmed the translation in English to be "Perhaps. Nor yours either."
The ring that Bella wears on her index finger throughout the movie is set with a large moonstone.
According to the Twilight Series a vampire's diet is shown by the color of their eyes; the Cullens feast only on animal blood so therefore have topaz eyes, whereas the Nomads and the Volturi have red eyes indicating they feast upon human blood.
Editor, Peter Lambert, edited a portion of the film during his daily commute. This may be the first major motion picture in which a big portion of the movie was edited in the backseat of a car!
New Moon composer Alexandre Desplat has stated that the romanticism nature of the music score that Chris Weitz and himself envisioned was referenced to the works of Desplat's mentor, Maurice Jarre. The music note credits has a special dedication line to Jarre.
The movie's American premiere was held on 16 November 2009, which, in the lunar cycle, is a new moon.
New Moon broke the record for the biggest one-day gross in the US with $72.7 million. Former record holder was The Dark Knight (2008).
Many theaters in the US sold out their screenings two months before the film was even released.
Reviews of New Moon have been mostly negative. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 28% of 203 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.6 out of 10. The site's general consensus is that "The Twilight Saga's second installment may satisfy hardcore fans of the series, but outsiders are likely to be turned off by its slow pace, relentlessly downcast tone, and excessive length."
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New Moon DVD Bonuses & Deleted Scenes:
None of the cast are included in the DVD audio commentary. The commentary is just done by the director Chris Weitz and editor Peter Lambert.With regard to Taylor Lautner's wig during his first scenes of the movie, this is what director, Chris Weitz states "Taylor hates this wig, and in a way, I can’t blame him, because I suppose it’s kind of like, you know, being Chewbacca.2
Editor, Peter Lambert, confirmed on the audio commentary that in the scene when Carlisle is cleaning Bella's wound after her birthday party, when he burns the blood-soaked gauze, if you look closely, you can see that the gauze forms the shape of a heart and an upside down wolf. This resembles the cover of the novel New Moon and is similar to what Melissa Rosenberg did in Twilight (2008), when Edward catches the apple that Bella dropped in the cafeteria.
Weitz stated on the audio commentary that a wide
screen shot of when
Jacob takes his shirt off to help Bella when
she fell off the motorbike was removed, as Stephenie Meyer called it
"Jacob's Chippendales audition". They went to a tighter shot of it
instead.Peter Lambert refers to the scene when Edward recites Romeo’s lines as Edward Cullen's classic moment. They actually experimented with the idea of cutting that scene out in order to get through the next section of the movie as quickly as possible but then realized it was a mistake, as Lambert states "’cause Rob really nails it.”
According to Chris Weitz on the audio commentary, he wasn't expecting the unintentional movie audience laughter when Alice's vision to Aro shows Edward and Bella running in slow motion through the woods as vampires. Jokingly, he said it's because Edward runs like a girl. Peter Lambert then defends Pattinson and says “Yeah, I think it’s hard to run in slow motion without looking a bit like a girl, unless, as your assistant, Dave Roker, said, you are Sylvester Stallone, in which case you can pull it off.”
Edward's sparkling skin in New Moon was changed slightly than in Twilight. In New Moon the new look is supposed to be more like sparkling marble instead of diamonds, which is what Weitz and his effects team came up with.
It's confirmed on the audio commentary that the use of color red was deliberately prohibited until the Bella running scene in Volterra, since the red signified blood and danger and was such an important part of the movie.
New Moon deleted scenes:
Still want more, then visit the Twilight Store
for lots of
Twilight Saga goodies!Source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259571/trivia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Saga:_New_Moon
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